


Clockwork Heart

by ViceCaptain



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViceCaptain/pseuds/ViceCaptain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“because you tell beautiful stories. Maybe they make me sad but they are so beautiful and when I listen to you it seems like I know how it is to have a heart”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Her Name Had Been Jenny](https://archiveofourown.org/works/441072) by [Tricksterburd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tricksterburd/pseuds/Tricksterburd). 



> My first work (and I expect it not to be the last) on Steam Powered Giraffe. As you can see, I was totally inspired (and thrown off the chair) by the lovely Tricksterburd's work "Her Name Had Been Jenny" that has become officially part of my headcanon. Speaking of headcanon, this one shot is more an exercise to learn how to move the characters and an outpouring of feels and ideas I got about them.  
> I don't own Steam Powered Giraffe (wich is unfortunate)

“my sweet Jenny the toaster… you can’t ever tell how much a girl like her can give you. I remember her even now, she was perfect except for one thing: she was ephemeral compared to me and even more if you consider that we spent together only 8 minutes. Then why I kept her? It wasn’t a logical assumption. I think it was because of a war memory and the error of my electronic brain caused by that memory, a dysfunction named L0V3 and from when I felt it the first time I never knew how to fix it, so I just kept it as it was, among all my errors and dysfunctions and faulty circuits that make me who I am. I don’t know what that means but I read it somewhere or maybe I heard it and it sounds great, don’t you think?”

“are you soliloquizing again, Rabbit?” asks The Spine, his mechanical joints hissing lightly until he stops in front of the open door of Rabbit’s chamber “ah, no, The Spine! I’m talking to whoever is going to listen to me” answers Rabbit, steam puffs from his neck and he smiles, his eyes gleaming blue and green, his brother blinks once and then process an answer wondering if it will be indelicate “no one is listening to you, Rabbit” the other giggles lightly “silly Spine! You are listening to me!” “it was a case that I was passing by” “but then you stopped”

The Spine nods “I suppose you’re right” Rabbit turns to look at the mirror and then asks “why was I doing such a thing?” he blinks at his reflection, his body moving haltingly, it would make The Spine’s heart ache if he had one and was able to actually feel, he just answers “you did it to let me know” “but why would you care? I mean, you are not programmed that way, neither am I” The Spine makes a sound that seems like a sigh and puts his hand on his brother shoulder “you keep too many data in your hard drive and every now and then you need to let them out” “sometimes I’d like to speak of those things with all the nice people that come to listen to our music, but in the end I just sing” the other keeps processing his words and what to answer and after a while he just asks “why don’t you tell them?”

Rabbit looks at The Spine and blinks twice, then he faces the mirror once again “I don’t want to make people sad” his electronic voice crackles lightly, his brother nods and says “next time you can come and speak with me” “but then I’ll make you sad” “no, you won’t, I’m a robot and I can’t feel sad” Rabbit smiles but this smile is way different from the previous one, his eyes shine in a way that doesn’t seem happy at all “if only that was true…”

Rabbit stays silent for a few seconds and then he just releases some steam and looks up at his brother, smiling widely “oh, well, maybe I should just stop talking with myself and occupy my free time thinking which name give to my giant cockroach. When I’ll ride it for Tina Turner in the future, you know?”

Before The Spine can answer a sound distracts them, coming from a wardrobe. They exchange a look between them before The Spine opens the door to find The Jon seated in it, sobbing.  
“what are you doing there?” he asks, The Jon comes out, drying his eyes on his sleeve “I was listening to Rabbit soliloquizing like you, The Spine” “I doubt that, since I was just passing by” Rabbit looks at The Jon and blinks, limbs hissing and steam puffing in the air “why would you listen to me talking to myself?”, the other looks first at the floor and then his blue gleaming eyes rise to stare at Rabbit directly “because you tell beautiful stories. Maybe they make me sad but they are so beautiful and when I listen to you it seems like I know how it is to have a heart”

Silence falls after that, before one of the bigger brothers could say one word The Jon adds “I know Rabbit has a heart! I heard it. Listen The Spine! You can hear it ticks even now” he then puts his ear on Rabbit’s chest and closes his eyes smiling. The Spine should maybe tell him that it is the sound of the gears working in their brother’s chest, it isn’t a heart at all, but he just doesn’t do it. Rabbit leaves The Jon listen to his “heart”.

“why is it so relevant to you, The Jon?” asks The Spine with genuine curiosity “because” he begins “I have none. When I look at myself in the mirror there is an hot dog, a koi and nothing. It looks like I’m empty and that really makes me sad” The Jon stops talking abruptly, he doesn’t want to worry his brothers so he smiles again and adds “but as long as I’m with you two I don’t feel sad or empty”

The Spine usually tends to be the most silent, he tries to be the serious one, looking after his brothers and trying to be a proper automaton but he also behave more like a human, he does it without noticing or simply because he would like to be a human being and he never speaks a word about it. He is tall and heavy and tough and he has to keep his brothers safe and so he doesn’t say much about all this things (heart, feelings, being sad, happy, lost) but he thinks a lot. He wonders often about what they are, why they feel and why, why on earth he wish to be human. Why they have all those things that their Pappy didn’t put in there when he built them. Or how he can handle two rare, precious and fragile things like his brothers. He wonders if he will always be capable to repair his brothers or if their humans will always be there to take care of them. What if their care keepers will leave them? What if one day he won’t be able to fix them? Would that mean that they are going to… die? Like their Pappy?  
All those unanswered questions make his insides twitch and it feels like pain but without injuries. He decided long ago that he won’t tell all this to his brothers and try to act like if he couldn’t feel anything.  
Even if he knows perfectly that Rabbit and The Jon have already noticed.

He comes back to the conversation when The Jon asks him if he has ever felt love. He looks back at all his life and he sees what The Jon is asking and he knows perfectly the answer would be yes, but he just can’t tell his brothers that one day, during the war, he fell in love with a kind and caring nurse, with silver hair and eyes, that same kind nurse with which his brother Rabbit fell in love too, before him. So he just shakes his head, the hat covering his eyes “no, I’m sorry”

Rabbit sighs, well he simulates a sigh, and with his haltingly body he turns towards the window, gazing at the sky, he remembers Jenny, both of them, and his gears start ticking faster. Among all the things that made him fall in love with Jenny there was this fact: she kept doing her job and, most of all, being kind and gentle despite the explosions and the deaths of all those men. He hates explosions and death, because they are scary and once he managed to cause both of them and the memory makes his circuits ache and his eyes leaking with oil. That pain is so different from the physical one, but so harder to heal. When it screams along his wires and drips through his gears he has to power himself down, almost off, to prevent his hard drive to be infected and abused by pain and his power core to be led by it, he could do things, terrible things, that he would never have done.

The Jon and The Spine are left to talk while Rabbit looks like he is shutting himself down, but he is just remembering. “is he thinking about the accident?” asks The Jon “he doesn’t consider it as an accident” The Spine answers “but it is. He has no fault” “that doesn’t stop him from feel it” The Jon crosses his arms and mutters “I don’t like it” “you don’t like what?” “that. When he feels so bad and then starts to act all faulty and looks like he is broken and then he has to change his mask to be right again” “I don’t like it too. Do you want to go? I can handle him myself” The Jon blinks with his big, blue eyes “no” he says “I want to stay and help” The Spine smiles slightly “thank you”

**Author's Note:**

> The part where Jon is talking about "Rabbit's mask" is a theory I totally made up and isn't canon. Maybe I'll explain it in another work "Rabbit centered" (or, if you don't want to wait, just ask :3)


End file.
